Kill your temptations

Resisting temptation takes a crap ton of willpower. But if you can find a way to make the temptation impossible, then willpower is irrelevant.

Some random examples:

• If you’re trying to start running, ask a friend to drop you off 3 miles from your house a few times a week, and sign something saying you’ll pay them $100 every time you flake.
• I’m addicted to Slack so I use HeyFocus to only allow me 30 minutes of Slack every four hours, no matter what. I can’t even force quit or uninstall the app; it’s too smart for that.
• If you can’t stop ordering food from GrubHub or Uber Eats, use parental controls on your phone to block those apps and get someone else to control the PIN.

When you’re struggling to make the right choice, figure out how to make it the only choice.

Side note: if you’re into this concept and like technology, try these out:

• Beeminder automatically tracks your goals and charges you money if you fail
• Covenant Eyes is kind of like Beeminder but specifically for porn
• Pavlok is a bracelet that literally shocks you to purge bad habits
• DietBet and HealthyWage let you create weight loss bets with your friends
• Write Or Die is a word processor that starts deleting stuff if you stop writing for too long
• Elekopter texts your friends/family if you don’t keep your commitments